


An Impossible View

by makeadealwithgod



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Hetalia: World Series
Genre: Character Study, Eye Trauma, Historical, Major Character Injury, Original Character(s), Recovery, Trauma, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22119628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeadealwithgod/pseuds/makeadealwithgod
Summary: Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.
Kudos: 6





	An Impossible View

**Author's Note:**

> content warning for graphic descriptions of injury and eye trauma. happy reading!

Three days until Ludwig was on leave, three days he knew better than to count. It was always the ones with life behind their eyes that didn’t make it, the ones who still had sweethearts to send them cigarettes and already crumbling photographs of home. A weeks leave, but the front would stay with him, conjoined to him through a covenant of grief and filth.

The flares had shot up just before midnight, screeching in a way that made the farm-boys talk of foxes in heat, which was, according to them, only slightly less terrible. By the time he looked, No Man’s Land was sculpted in brimstone light, shadows cast in amber stumbling over black wire. Despite himself, Ludwig felt his hands begin to shake. Far from the trenches, he stood with the rest of the cavalry, the horses lined up with such an unearthly stillness it was hard to believe they were animals at all. Gretel shook her head softly, her lone eye wide and burning with the battle raging ahead of them. No one had wanted her, a young mare with a gentle temper and a blind eye- the remnant of a group of village boys and nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon. She rode as well as any stallion, unrelenting as shells crashed by them and the sky howled with death, but only Ludwig would stroke her ruined face and talk to her as softly as any father. One officer, Sasha, a younger Berliner who had long taken notice of Ludwig, had remarked on her timidness, commending Ludwig for being the only thing that kept the poor animal from falling apart entirely.

_ Wrong animal _ , Ludwig had thought to himself, as the officer strolled back to his quarters. In the middle of the night, in the rare and terrifying moments of stillness on the front, he would rest against Gretel and tell her his dreams, that he hadn’t had a letter for Gilbert in months and he didn’t know how to find him. When the sun would begin to spill over the horizon, and he felt the world shake as men returned to duty, he would hide his face in her mane, black and coarse and ever so slightly burned, and whisper that he was scared. The whistle blew, piercing the shroud of hissing shells and gunfire, and they both knew it was time to ride.

Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, and his foot in the stirrup, he saw No Man’s Land sprawled in front of him. The ground was already thick with bodies, spilling hopelessly into the mud, as the men behind stumbled into bullets. As though he were in a trance, a man lunged his way to the line, staggering in the thick mud, his bayonet nowhere to be seen. Ludwig thought to himself a shell must have blinded him, his arms groping poisoned air as his leg tore into barbed wire. Then Ludwig saw it: hanging limply, severed bar a few disparate threads of muscle, hung his jaw. For the love of God, someone please shoot him, he watched as the wire tore deeper into his leg, the man’s face trapped in a macabre look of bemusement as he tugged at the ruined limb. Against the tide of gunfire, Ludwig heard a shot ring out, and the soldier fell to the ground at last. It was the first prayer he had ever seen answered.

Another flare erupted in amber light; vision felt perverse, unwelcome in such a nightmare, Ludwig wished he could screw his eyes shut like a child, as though the world would melt away from his sight. He thought of the served jaw and he couldn’t, the whistle finally blew again and he knew he had to. In a moment he was pelting forward, into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell.

\---

The shell had exploded inches away from Gretel’s hooves, hurling Ludwig from his saddle as she reared up in fear, he landed among the heap of bodies, half-drowned in mud, desperately hoping Gretel hadn’t been hurt. It was only when he woke up to a wash of faded white, the world distant and sluggish, as though he was looking through a bed-sheet, that he realised he had been injured. The nurses had tried to reassure him, his sight was his only injury, he could return home, no one could doubt he was a hero. One had sat by his bed-side timidly, lingering on his plate of untouched food, her voice low and hesitant, as though she were weaving her thoughts together carefully. You’re still young, and handsome, she shifted her weight on the mattress, shying away from him, you can still have a family. For a moment, her hand rested on his leg, there was no intimacy intended to it, but the pity of it all was too much for him to bear. The world had never seen more far away than when he tucked his knees into his chest and began to sob.

When the armistice came, all Ludwig could manage was a shrug of indifference. In the countryside, he had found a room in a farmhouse to let; cities reminded him of his brother and how it felt to be a spectator of the world, not a spectacle. Perhaps the remoteness was a cage, but he couldn’t yet bear to be seen by anyone but the old farmer and his wife, and although he paced like an animal held captive, he knew it was better than being hopelessly lost in a world that could forget the war. Sometimes he would listen to the radio for days on end, his mind barely able to keep up with the conversations that spilt onto one another in a senseless blur. Once, as the world began to crumble away and he could feel sleep wash over him like a rising tide, he heard a familiar voice. The clipped accent, how he never finished his sentences; his words felt like meadows in summer and milky coffee and the memory of being tucked in at night. Nostalgia rocked Ludwig to sleep, it was the first time in years the world had fallen silent.

One morning, the farmer’s wife hurried up the stairs and pressed two envelopes into Ludwig’s hands. She was always excited when he received any letters, as it gave her an excuse to sit and read to him, as she must have done when her children were small. Part of him wondered if it should frustrate him, how his manhood had been stripped of him, but truthfully he was grateful for someone who wouldn’t flinch when they saw his blank stare, the lack of focus that had once come as instinct. In the first envelope was a silver badge, she passed it to him to feel as she read the letter to him, her voice swelling with pride he wasn’t certain she was entitled to. As she began to read the second letter, his fingers dragged over the engravings on the metal, a sword, and a helmet. Her voice faded as he wondered if that was all he ever was.

A name caught his attention so violently his grip tightened around the badge, pushing the pin into the palm of his hand.  _ I will be bringing Gretel up with me _ , repeating herself, her voice laced with a curiosity Ludwig could only imagine matched her look,  _ you wouldn't believe how hard it is to drag a horse halfway across Germany _ . Ludwig couldn’t help but smile as she began to chuckle to herself,  _ expect me in a fortnight, your friend always, Sascha _ . Barely containing her excitement, she reached over to Ludwig and squeezed his hand, not entirely certain what any of it meant, but knowing it was the first time she had seen his smile for a reason beyond politeness. A startled gasp drew Ludwig from his excitement as he felt blood trickle down his palm, and smiling even wider as the older woman pressed her apron against his palm, scolding her as though he were her unruly son.

Two weeks, Ludwig thought to himself deliriously.

The rain had started to scatter against the tiles above them, it reminded Ludwig of- nothing, but the rain he’d heard a hundred nights before, he scolded himself. Somehow, Gretel had survived the explosion, Sascha had told Ludwig the evening he had arrived at the farmhouse, but no one in the cavalry would take her. After hours arguing with his fellow officers, they agreed to sell her to a local farmer, although the others had been more inclined to have her shot, as she was too small to for the carts or machinery. Months later, with his precious few days of leave, he returned to the farm and bought her for twice her worth, under the condition that the owner would keep her safe until the war had ended.

A silence fell between them, the volume of his actions becoming clear to Ludwig. Without his sight, he could feel the space Sascha inhabited across from him, he could hear the soft smile in his words, how was able to look him in the eyes as he spoke to him.

Why would you do all that?

He laughed, as though he had spent the entire evening expecting his question. I had to keep you from falling apart entirely.

\---

The wind howled against the stable door like a pack of wild dogs, shuddering against its weight. In the corner, a candle had been burning steadily all night, the silver dish flashing gold as the flame drew nearer. Gretel lay sound asleep, twitching or jerking her leg now and then, just as Ludwig felt himself succumb to fatigue. A gust of wind billowed against the building, and the door slammed against its frame, rattling furiously as Ludwig felt his hands tremble. Winter was the hardest season, as the nights grew long and restless his dreams became cold and awful. That night, he had dreamt of a sea of mud, bodies groping their way through the filth with wide eyes and empty mouths- he had reached the stables just before the storm.

Some days he wondered if he had survived the war at all, whether lying in some faraway field, between the craters and the remains, was his better half. But then, this was all he had left, and as Gretel’s chest rocked him softly away from his thoughts, he remembered the voice on the radio and the feeling of model planes and smuggled chocolates.   
  



End file.
